May 28, 2010

Although literally 100's of miles from any ocean and a dozen miles from any large body of water, the lowly and largely misunderstood Town of Lamont was faced with yet another vexing dilemma after a surprisingly large number of white, noisy, largely fearless seagulls seemed to come out of nowhere and have taken up residence in the Town park, insiders report. (Probably because we do not have a doggone fairgrounds like that dadburn Rockford, WA does! Oh yeah, life is fair! I mean, what self-respecting bird would roost in a mere park while there is a decidedly superior and obviously more luxurious 'fairgrounds' just a short distance away - at least as the crow flies, anyway! I mean, come on). The wayward gulls, who seem unnaturally attracted to the newly refurbished picnic tables in the park in spite of several decidedly vain attempts to encourage the ingrates to fly to Sprague or Harrington or whatever, appear to consider these said picnic tables as the ultimate in 'restroom luxury' and have even been seen spiraling directly above the Mayor as he makes his way grudgingly to the newly painted office - while ineffectually shaking his fist at the sky the whole time! (Oh, when will he learn that that only encourages his adversaries?)

"Oh yeah, life is just peachy!" bellowed the Mayor while wiping some unfortunate substance off of his brand new shirt. "So, I guess that doggone Long Beach is no longer satisfied with mere metaphors when it comes to showing dominance over Lamont - so now they have to send their flying minions over here to do the job for real? (Good thing Lamont is not a fire hydrant!) Darn their eyes! I am sorry I ever picked a fight with them in the first place! Okay, we surrender! We give! Uncle! Happy now? Just call those doggone flying 'guano factories' back home and I promise I will never attempt to undermine Long Beach again!" he lied. "Oh, even our stupid cats are scared of the things. I saw one of my cats slinking thru the tall grass in an attempt to subdue one of the obviously unwelcome interlopers when one of his apparently 'eagle-eyed' gull brothers spied her somewhat clumsy approach and sounded the klaxon-like alarm - thus causing dozens of the winged fiends to take ominously to the air in a blink of an eye! My cat was so freaked out that all she could do was sprint home, belly to the ground while looking desperately over her shoulder in a hopeless attempt to ward off some unwelcome intrusion on her person (unfortunately, she was so startled by the sudden onslaught that she, too, did her fair share to contribute to the 'guano problem' in the park, doggone it! What a mess!) "Oh, when will this madness end? You don't see Lamont sending cows over to the Long Beach park to 'manure up' the place, now do you? What ever happened to fighting fair? That doggone Long Beach! They play for keeps, let me tell you!" he whined while contemplating some hair-brained scheme to somehow ship cows over to Long Beach to even the score! "I bet those huge Towns like Spangle and Fairfield don't have to put up with this sort of abuse!" he sniveled unconvincingly!

May 21, 2010

The fabulous yet humble metropolis of Fairfield, WA seems to be the only town in the entire Pacific Northwest that is not attempting to horn in on and somehow diminish the Lamont 100 Year Festival being held on June 19th of this year. The stunningly decent Town of Fairfield, well known across the Palouse for their patriotic fervor as well as their quite outstanding Clerk/Treasurers, was obviously a Town that was brought up with a firm but loving mother who instilled the basic principles of showing respect for other Town's festivals, especially 100 year ones, and to take the high road and allow some smaller, less organized, downtrodden, largely unknown, hopelessly self-focused Town to have their day in the sun - as opposed to being outrageous glory hogs and attempting to glom onto June 19th just to make some other unnamed small town in far northwest Whitman County look bad, for Pete's sake! This totally exciting "Flag Day", which is by far the coolest event of the year next to the Lamont 100 Year Festival, is quite appropriately being held on June 11th, 12th and 13th (Good gravy! Three days! Lamont is borderline suicidal just planning some event on a single day from 11:00 to 5:00! Whoa! What organizational prowess! What 'get up and go!') and will include such things as a "Fun Run" (Isn't that some sort of an oxymoron? Oh, that whole concept is just so wrong on so many levels! Fun Run? How absurd!! The only way to have a successful Lamont 'Fun Run' would be to unleash the hounds!), a Fireman's Breakfast, a School Reunion, an Archery Competition (Oh, we could never do THAT in Lamont! Just think of the doggone body count!), a Kiddies Parade, a Flag Dedication, A Civil War Reenactment (Whoa! Ditto on the body count! Are they crazy? Lamont almost had actual bloodshed at the one and only chess tournament we unfortunately put on! Who would have thought that those chess nerds with their 'high water' pants and pocket protectors would be so doggone scrappy? What beasts!), a big party and a dance (What is with all this dancing? First Rockford and now Fairfield? Lamont could never get anyone to dance - at least not since the Snopes' moonshine still got all busted up by those doggone 'G-men' or whatever back in 2003!).

Anyway, normally Lamont would resent and attempt to undermine any small town with that level of organization and diversity of activities, but since they are not competing against our 100 Year Festival, we will focus our obviously abundant energies in that vein on those other so-called 'Towns' (you know who you are!) who had the bad taste to attempt to steal our municipal thunder (darn your eyes!). Come on, people! Can't you check with us first before holding some big shindig? Oh, the manners of this country are really going to hell-in-a-hand-basket, let me tell you! Get off your duffs and drive to Fairfield that weekend, folks! You can meet our new and quite outstanding Clerk/Treasurer (who also works wonders in Fairfield!) as well as pick up some much needed municipal manners that you will hopefully take home to your cities and towns and thus potentially avert a cultural catastrophe not seen since Billy Carter was allowed to run free in the White House with a 12 pack of 'Billy Beer' stuffed in his pants, for crying out loud! (Oh, how this nation ever survived that family we will never know!) Rumor has it that the Lamont contingent is trying to go to the main Fairfield event day, Saturday, June 12th, but you know how disorganized and hapless we are. But we might just see you there! Mark your calendars now or we might just get our old farmer/rancher motivational expert Bubba Bodine all 'gassed up' and have him make a little reminder call at your house when you have company! Believe me, you do not want that! (Oh, the horror!) Do yourself a favor and drive over to Fairfield on June 12th. Just remember, Bubba knows who has been naughty and nice... Don't say you weren't warned! Oh yeah, and don't forget to pick up some lentils while you are there! They have the best darn lentils in the whole doggone world! And you know what they say! "A day without lentils is like a day without sunshine!" And just think of all that fiber!

May 19, 2010

The lowly and largely misunderstood Town of Lamont, currently recovering from any number of tragic and quite disturbing municipal traumas, was faced with a menacing dilemma that could only happen in a place like the Palouse after an area farmer/rancher, Flem Snopes, age 56, obviously forgot to take his medication(s) and has somehow failed (or was it indeed deliberate?) to differentiate his supposedly innocent although quite cantankerous neighbors from the largely rebellious and ill-mannered herd that he spends a vast majority of his largely empty and meaning-starved life with, doggone it! "So, there I was, talking on the phone in the office when all of a sudden the door burst open and some guy with a bandanna over his face came riding in on horseback waving some rope thing over his head and the next thing I knew my hands and feet were tied together like a dadburn rodeo calf or whatever and some stupid horse was poking his big, slobbery nose right in my upturned face!" said an area Mayor who was victim number 7 in the latest round of humiliating citizen subjugations. "And to top it all off, I had just vacuumed the doggone carpet for the first time in 3 months, too!! Now there are muddy hoof prints all over the place and the stupid Town vacuum is clogged with those unfortunate horse droppings that I tried to vacuum up after I managed to untie myself several hours later! And how was I supposed to know that you cannot vacuum up 'road apples'? (they did sit there for quite some time, if you think about it!) I don't remember reading that prohibition in the vacuum's owner's manual, for crying out loud!" he fumed, somehow missing the point - although that is not a surprise. "And sadly, I was on the phone with the County Commissioner's office and they must have heard the whole darn thing! Oh, how humiliating! What must they think of us? Why must we always air our dirty laundry for the whole darn world to see?" he whined!

"Well, I was out watering those new trees that the Town buys every year when, out of the blue, I felt a coarse rope wrap itself around my upper torso and then I was quite indelicately jerked to the ground and hogtied in something under 6 seconds - a new Town record!" said the proud, beaming Fester Bodine, age 63, a retired rancher. "Sure, I have a rope burn between several of my chins, but hey, I hold the Town record now - so in your face, Lamont! Try to beat that! That doggone Thelma Snodgrass took almost 8 seconds to immobilize while she was out checking her mail - so I beat her by a full 2 seconds!" he raved before thrusting his arms towards the Heavens in the universal victory salute immortalized by 'Rocky Balboa' in one or more of those exhilarating "Rocky' movies that Lamont so identifies with. "Oh yeah, and those Festoon toddler twins took almost 14 doggone seconds - but there was 2 of them and all - so that don't really count, I don't 'recon!" he admitted graciously - showing a level of fairness that Lamont is renowned for across all of extreme northwest Whitman County.

This unfortunate disruption, one of several that seem to plague Lamont on an almost weekly basis, was brought to a peaceful yet quite dramatic end after the perpetrator's wife, Elma Snopes, age 53, provided her husband's long neglected medications to a veterinarian from the Spokane Zoo who delivered the much needed (although slightly over-prescribed!) dose (plus an indeterminate amount of large animal tranquilizer!) to Flem via the Zoo's ever-handy tranquilizer gun. (Dang, we need to get one of those!) Flem, now as docile as a lamb, is expected to be resting comfortably for at least a week or two. "Hey, don't blame me! I am used to tranquilizing elephants and rhinos and other large mammals, doggone it! How am I supposed to know how much it takes to bring a mere man down - especially those crazy ones that come from a place like Lamont, for goodness sake?" he bellowed defensively! (well, he does have a point there!) "They never taught us that in Vet School, for crying out loud!" he said, protesting just a little too much!

May 15, 2010

In a feat of daring, pluck and almost unbelievable bravado that brought tears to the eyes of technophiles and computer geeks the world over, the BIAS Accounting Support Desk once again shocked the Tech Support world (and themselves!) after a local Mayor called in with a brand new computer and they were able to talk/walk him thru the software installation process (Over the phone, no less! And they couldn't even use pictures or whatever!) and reinstalled the Town's accounting data in slightly more than an hour - even though most of the time was spent waiting on Lamont's stupid dial-up connection that is a shockingly sad statement on small town infrastructure in the early 21st century, if you ask me! (Oh, and who says we do not live in the age of miracles? This support effort proves that we do, indeed!) This feat of human endurance and patience by the BIAS Team ranks right up there with NASA's Apollo 13 space disaster recovery (Tom Hanks was so brave!) and, of course, Sir Edmond Hillary losing his doggone ear muffs at the 19,000 foot level but still soldiering on to conquer Mt. Everest for the first time - without the aid of modern clothing and materials, oxygen and/or those little pocket-warmer thing-a-ma-bobs! "Well, when we first got the call and I realized it was the Mayor of Lamont, I naturally cursed my luck at being the one to pick up the stupid phone" said an unnamed Support Professional who deserves a doggone raise, for crying out loud! "Anyway, after my blood returned from its ice water state, I just realized that a 'poor, lost, foolish, annoying, shockingly ignorant, borderline-Neanderthal' customer (Editorial Note: Okay, he didn't say or think those things in italics, but we added them in an attempt to be honest here and call a spade a spade! I mean, come on! Why beat around the bush?) needed my help, so I just threw myself into the seemingly hopeless problem with the reckless abandon that is the hallmark of BIAS Accounting Support, doggone it. I mean, we are here to help, and one must take the monumental challenges along with the more normal, routine ones, for Pete's sake! I just strapped myself into my ergonomically correct chair, rolled up my sleeves, said a quick prayer and prepared for the worst!" he said bravely. "Anyway, to make matters worse, the Town's new computer had Windows 7 on it, versus Windows 2000 that the Mayor used at the most rudimentary level, (Rudimentary? That is being awfully generous, don't you think?) so we had that whole navigation problem to contend with too, but somehow we managed to keep at it, often repeating the same request 10-15 times until the Mayor would finally summon up the courage to hit the "Okay" button or cut-and-paste a folder from the CD we provided the Town. (Now that personalized CD was a nice touch, too! What customer service!) By the time we were finished, needless to say, I was exhausted, covered in sweat and just sank back into my chair with that blank, '1000 mile' stare that one is only allowed to use after walking right up to the edge of some hideous abyss and returning alive (and sane!) to tell the sordid tale! I just hope that that new computer lasts for a very, very long time, for Pete's sake!" he said, eyes gazing up to the Heavens with a desperate, pleading expression. "Either that, or I hope someone else answers the doggone phone the next time that dern Mayor calls, for crying out loud!!" he concluded with a wild, desperate look in his glassy, unfocused eyes, but he was only being halfway serious. (Okay, maybe a little more than halfway, doggone it!)

"Well, BIAS Accounting is pretty darn amazing, let me tell you!" said the relieved Mayor - like a man who receives the phone call from the Governor one minute before some creepy dude in a leather mask threw the big, rusty switch in some dark, poorly painted death row cell in the bottom of some hot, steaming prison that one would expect to find in the movie "Deliverance" or whatever! "Anyway, let us just say that when it comes to those doggone computers, I pretty much make Gomer Pile look like Bill Gates or Albert Einstein or whatever. (Come to think of it, he does use the expression "SHAZAAM!" all too frequently!!) My inherent skill level is indeed very disconcerting, if one thinks about it! (Oh, don't even think of giving him a remote control or hand held electrical device of any kind!!) Anyway! I just called those poor BIAS folks up and before I knew it we had the latest and greatest software and, shazaam, I was able to logon to BIAS and see our actual data from before our computer crashed due to a power spike" he said gratefully. (Hello, people! Get a good surge protector for your computers! Don't be like Lamont! (Oh, the horror!) Be smart and protect your town - if for no other reason than to differentiate yourselves from the 2nd smallest Town in the State! Thank you!) "We love BIAS Accounting! They are simply the best and we are darn lucky to use their software in the rough-and-tumble, bare knuckles world of small town management. That's all I've got to say on the matter!" he concluded dramatically before meandering off aimlessly to goof something else up!

May 14, 2010

In a rare moment of startling political candor not seen since Betsy Ross so pointedly referred to Martha Washington as "a silly old crow who can't sew worth a hoot!", an area Mayor lowered the bar of public discretion to a new low while discussing the psychological devastation and feelings of personal futility that come with being the Mayor of the 2nd smallest Town in the State, late Tuesday. "Well, although largely thankless and the social equivalent of having ice water poured down the shorts of one's very soul on almost an hourly basis by an amazing variety of differing and demographically varied individuals - the scope of which stretches across the entire spectrum of the 'body politic' in the Palouse, there are parts of the Mayor's job that are in fact rewarding and where personal initiative and resourcefulness are not met with the mule-like kick of outright rejection - or so I keep telling myself" said the eerily upbeat Mayor while organizing some stuff in the office while no one was around. "I mean, we are blessed with getting to work with those folks down there in Whitman County - like the head librarian Kristie Kirkpatrick and of course that whole County Commissioner's office is certainly first rate (Greg Partch, Lamont's Commissioner, is one impressive, results-oriented individual!) - and, oh yeah, pretty much everyone I have met that is associated with the Sheriff's Department is in the top 2% of the American population - but doggone it, at some point there is work to be done around here and that is when it gets all messy. I have people who do not even live within the Town limits whose sole mission in life is to thwart Lamont's every move and belittle even the most magnanimous of Town decisions. What the heck is up with that? And these busybodies are supposedly 'community leaders'! Why can't they pick another town to browbeat and run into the ground, for Pete's sake?" he whined. "Oh, and then there is that whole contingent of stalwart citizens who get all miffy if the park is not mowed in a counter-clockwise direction - something about unhinging the magnetic axis under Lamont, thus unleashing ill-humors or some such thing! I have no earthly idea what that is even all about!" said the nincompoop who should know about those things without being told, for goodness sake! I mean, come on! "Oh yeah, and we have that segment of our fledgling democracy who refuses to walk on our new sidewalks because they are still mad from when we got over half the Town paved (Courtesy of the TIB and Greg Partch!) because they prefer gravel roads like Opie of Mayberry fame!! (these are the same folks who complained about the summer dust generated by gravel roads - but who needs consistency when one is desperately holding onto the runaway horse of uncontrolled anger and social discord?) I don't know, sometimes it just seems a little bit futile bordering on hopeless" he said with outrageous understatement. "But tomorrow is another day. That has to be better than today, doesn't it?" he said foolishly, once again demonstrating why he was the only guy in Town dumb enough to be the Mayor in the first place.

(Editorial Note: Remember folks, this is a parody! This whole area is filled with fine folks - so before anyone runs off and makes the above jests even more grounded in reality, use your head, switch to decaf and stop taking life so seriously. Just the fact that this disclaimer was necessary says more than it ought to, however! Yes, and you know who you are! Ahhhh... Having a blog is sweet!)

May 11, 2010

In a rare commingling of the proverbial 'pouring salt into the wound' that was, in fact, the same injury that they seem to continue to heap insults upon, (whoa, that was poorly worded - but you get the drift!) the annoyingly successful and charming City of Long Beach once again managed to humble the 2nd smallest Town in the State without even trying (really, that is not that hard, if you get right down to it!) - this lack of effort, of course, makes it just that much more humiliating, for Pete's sake! That doggone Long Beach, having the unfair advantage of being nestled right up against the best ocean in the whole darn world (as opposed to being 'shoehorned' up against the eerie and forbidding 'Scablands' that are filled with despicable desperadoes and where rattlesnakes from across the globe love to go on their honeymoon!), - those rascals in Long Beach not only enjoy seemingly endless fragrant ocean breezes (as opposed to those unfortunate cattle related smells that Lamont must endure!), but they also get to observe dolphins and whales, have friendly tourists come to visit without actually having to bribe them, bask in the glory of high-speed internet - and (quite unfairly!) they also get to sample the bountiful harvest of fresh seafood from the Earth's abundance without driving 50+ miles to Spokane in a car that needs new tires and that suddenly developed an unsettling whistling noise after hitting some huge tumbleweed or whatever the heck that was.

"Well, this goes without saying, but it is a little unnerving to realize that Long Beach actually has clams that are bigger than our whole dern Town! Oh, like we needed that little reminder of our status in the Great State of Washington, for crying out loud!" bellowed the Mayor after recovering from an embarrassing swoon upon receiving the latest disturbing news from his arch-rival - that annoyingly well-planned and just plain cute City of Long Beach. (Oh yeah, life is fair! Long Beach is even a City while Lamont barely makes the definition of a Town! We are more like a half-baked hamlet or municipal cubby-hole or whatever!) "I mean, I know in the bare-knuckles brawl that is the cutthroat world of inter-city rivalry where one Town's loss is another Town's gain that showing weakness of any kind is just not done, but one would think that Long Beach, who obviously has everything that any sane Mayor could dream of (Like a store!!! Is one store too much to ask for?) would throw Lamont a bone from time to time! I mean, come on!!! I know they are good and all - but do they have to be THAT good?? Oh, why do they always get to be Cinderella while we are the frumpy step-sister with a bad case of 'BO' and a seemingly intractable acne problem?? Oh, when will this madness stop?" he ranted insanely while shaking his fist in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean. "Darn their eyes! Why must we live in a world with such pronounced 'haves and have-nots' on the civic and community level? And why does Long Beach always get to be the Prom King while Lamont is the nerdy, dateless geek who has to stay home from the prom (with his mom!) to work on some pathetic stamp collection or make model airplanes or whatever. (and so that the popular, hip, cooler, less population-challenged towns don't beat them up!) That is just so wrong on every conceivable level, doggone it! When will our day in the sun ever come?" he sniveled annoyingly.

May 9, 2010

In one of those situations that can only occur in very small towns where a substantial (although not universal, by any means!) group of busy bodies live outside the Town and feel that they should control every aspect of life that takes place inside the Town limits (indeed, it is their right as an American, ain't it?), a quite determined and obviously energetic cabal of Lamont-area outsiders (some would say 'interlopers!') whose claim to the Town rests solely on the fact that Lamont is the closest municipal conglomeration to their rundown ranch or single-wide trailer or sod-covered hutch or whatever it is that they live in, have really got their somewhat thinning feathers soaked this time after the entire self-reinforcing group became convinced that the Mayor called their bitter, shrew-like, highly unpleasant and petty (don't forget snarky!) leader, Thelma Snopes, aged 54, a supposedly less than flattering name related to a barn animal that is not often even seen in the Palouse, doggone it! (Hey, why are there so few goats around here, anyway?) The latest in a long string of totally contrived and quite silly altercations between the brooding coven of malicious busy bodies (only a small percentage of the area folks fall into the 'malcontent category', thank goodness!) and the unfortunate Mayor began when it was reported to the Mayor that the so-called non-Lamont malcontents were amazingly against the new library (Oh yeah, did you hear we are getting a new library?? Yippee! Thank you County Commissioners! We love Whitman County!) on the grounds that no one in their right mind likes to read anymore (not when there is Oprah, for crying out loud!) and if they do read they would prefer to read at home and only in the bathroom! (That alone says volumes!) The Mayor, faced with less-than-well-reasoned foolishness like this on a regular basis, tried to diffuse the contemptible situation by saying "Oh, I feel certain that Thelma must be kidding". This single mayoral statement was, in fact, enough to trigger a quite extensive and ludicrous explosion that has rumbled thru the Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area ever since, at least in those jaded circles that love nothing more than listening to gossip and the basest of trash-talk. (Oh, why are some so eager to run to the drums of controversy over and over, like a dog returning to its own vomit? Doesn't anyone read their bibles anymore?)

"Well, everyone knows that baby goats are called 'kids' - so if that poor, sweet, largely misunderstood and saintly Thelma was 'kidding', as that quite illustrative Mayor so indelicately puts it, then doesn't that mean that she has to be a dadburn goat?" screeched Elma Festoon, an area farm wife who lives 7 miles outside of Lamont. "He called her a doggone barn animal! I told you that he was a no-good Mayor!" she raved to anyone who would listen. (ironically, the attentive group that was 'all ears' tended to be the same overactive group of gossips and trouble-makers who all live outside the Town (with a few exceptions, unfortunately!) and who all tend to have weak or absentee husbands (the female gossips, anyway!) who, by definition, have shunned their biblical role as 'man of the house', thus allowing these select individuals to 'stir the Devil's caldron' on a more than regular basis with no matrimonial reproof of any kind.) (And remember, when one dines with the devil, it is a good idea to bring a very long spoon - or so the German expression goes!)

"Well, this is the last straw! The Lamont government has to fall now, for sure!" said the suddenly gleeful Bertha Bodine (with the first genuine (although cadaver-like!) smile in over 20 years!), an area farm wife/busy body who lives closer to St. John but claims Lamont for some darn reason. (Oh yeah, life is fair!) "Sure, we have no legal, moral, ethical and/or voter claim against that doggone duly elected Lamont government, but if we did not spend all of our time trying to tear down that annoyingly successful group over there, then how, in fact, would we be able to wile away our largely meaningless, mean-spirited and futile lives, anyway? And besides, they are cleaning up and building and making things look so nice, it just makes the so-called 'ruling elite' around here look bad for sitting by and doing nothing for 5+ decades while the Town declined and decayed! That just ain't right to let this go on, given that we cannot take all the credit for the improvements and all! That Mayor must be stopped, especially since he called that poor, sweet, generous Thelma "a stinky old goat that ain't worth a pitchfork full of rotten hay" ranted Bertha insanely. (Oh, how the story evolves with the telling!)

(Editorial Note: By the way, where are all the husbands of these women, anyway? (and the wives of the few male rabble-rousers?") Are they glad that their 'significant others' have something outside of their homes (and ranches) to focus their venom upon, thus drawing that poison farther away from themselves? (who could blame them?) It is time to step up, people! Reclaim your lives and your husbands/wives and do everyone a favor and keep your problems at home where they belong! Thank you!!)

May 2, 2010

The charming and outrageously well-managed Town of Rockford was spared one of the penultimate horrors of the 21st century after the Mayor of Lamont, while attending a very well-organized and delightful 'Sadie Hawkins Dance' in the Rockford Grange, decided to sit on his hands (like a lump) versus joining in and demonstrating the one dance move that he actually knows (and, if the somewhat dubious rumors are to be believed, he practices when he is alone!) - the disturbing and largely anti-social (don't forget un-American!) "Rump Shaker" that has terrorized the Palouse since at least the late 1970's. "Well, he was our guest, so I guess that we would have been willing to put up with just about anything in the spirit of being a good host - but I think I can say, and I am speaking for more than myself here, that the way things turned out is probably the best possible outcome for all concerned" said an unnamed dance attendee while gazing lovingly up at the Heavens with genuine thanks and appreciation to our Maker who does indeed love and protect His children in the big things as well as the small. (Whoa! This was a big one! Huge!!)

"Well, as we sat there and were very graciously greeted by what in Lamont would be considered 'hoards of model citizens'; all of whom seemed nice, socially engaged, law abiding and no strangers to personal hygiene, I could not help but fume over how well they all seemed to like each other and get along!!" said the peevish Lamont Mayor with a look of stunned incredulity. "I mean, I was in that room for well over an hour and never once saw even the slightest hint of someone giving someone else the 'stink eye' and there were certainly none of those unfortunately unpleasant hand gestures that make living in Lamont so darn special. I am not kidding, it was actually a fun, friendly, positive, welcoming environment. After being the Mayor for 4 years, I must admit that all that friendliness and 'bon ami' kind of gave me the creeps! How can so many people in a Town genuinely like, respect and commingle with their fellow citizens without the prerequisite back biting, slanderous accusations, and just general crankiness that I assumed made up the core foundation of small town living in the Palouse, for Pete's sake? Lamont could never pull off something like that! That Micki Harnois and Darlene are doggone miracle workers, I say!!!" he said with jealousy-tinged admiration while pondering the unfairness of life itself.

Although the cute and successful Town of Rockford was spared the life changing (some would say sanity destroying) particulars of that decidedly pagan and unsettling 'Rump Shaker', the obviously appreciative and energetic crowd (Oh, that was just so wrong, too! The whole Town of Rockford was downright perky!!) did get to witness Ruth Simpson, a Lamont Councilperson, doing what we believe was called 'The Chicken Dance', which, if one is truly honest, was about 1,000,000 times more socially appropriate than that abomination that the Mayor would have unleashed on the unsuspecting and largely sheltered masses of Rockford, if for no other reason than it is the only dance move that he knows. (You just can't take him anywhere!)

May 1, 2010

In an orchestrated carpet bombing campaign not seen since the last days of WWII, the various and sundry species of birds in and around Lamont have joined in a rare bird-like confederation with what appears to be one diabolical mission in mind - the consistent and quite horrifying plastering of an elected official with a seemingly endless supply of 'bird you-know-what'! The Mayor, well seasoned to having this happen to him, being a small town Mayor and all (although not from the aviary members of the animal kingdom, however!), is facing this latest tragic development with characteristic pluck and overreaction, as is his nature, unfortunately. "Darn their beady little eyes!!" shouted the Mayor while shaking his fist at the suddenly ominous skies. "Every time I go outside it seems like squadrons of the flying beasts just seem to emerge out of nowhere in their obviously well-coordinated attempt to drive me back indoors and thus away from my vital (although largely ineffectual!) mayoral duties! Sparrows, finches, robins, blackbirds and now even that stupid hawk or eagle or whatever that nests in the park! I am now forced to do three loads of laundry a day, doggone it! What has gotten into those fanatical feathered fiends?" he sniveled from the supposedly safe confines of his covered front porch. (which, sadly, provided little actual protection against the smaller, more agile birds) "Anyway, I got this really cool hat from those outrageous show-offs over there in Long Beach (Why can't Lamont ever buy cool hats to give away? Doesn't that seem pretty basic?) after our Councilperson with questionable loyalty and even more suspect sanity vacationed over there and got a tour of how a real city operates if given halfway decent management, (sadly, Long Beach appears to be quite excellent in this regard! - Oh, and their planning department! Oh yeah, life is fair!) and the very first day I proudly wore the darn thing (it was, at one point, the nicest hat in the whole darn Town!) I was not outside my front door for more than three (3) minutes when some disgusting flying hellion made a strafing run at me and scored a direct hit right on my now prized possession! That was just so wrong! Thank goodness we never have any tourists - unlike that stupid Long Beach! And what are my cats doing while all of this is happening? Napping like the lazy beasts they are! (more like looking intently out the window at the altercation with smug, purr-filled satisfaction!). Has the whole doggone animal kingdom teamed up against me now?" he bellowed melodramatically to no one in particular.

"Well, although unpleasant at the best of times, I had to go see the Mayor about something or another and when I first laid eyes on him, I just naturally assumed that he had been either rather ineffectually painting a ceiling or had somehow developed one of the worst cases of dandruff on human record!" said Gomer Festoon, 53, an area farmer/rancher. "I mean, as I was trying to ask him a question he just kept slinking from covered place to covered place, glancing furtively up at the sky and yelling 'duck' from time to time before throwing himself to the ground and scrambling for whatever cover presented itself. I wanted to tell him that those birds were not ducks, but before I had a chance, a whole 'V' formation of migrating ducks flew right over him at treetop level (yes, they were gleefully quacking!) - thus making my quite snarky correction meaningless at that point, doggone it!" said Festoon. "Upon closer inspection I realized that our Mayor was somehow embroiled in some inter-species conflict well outside the bounds of my interest and/or concern, so I just left him standing there in the park, insanely raving something about "Is that all you've got! I've seen hummingbirds do better than that!! And you call yourself a heron!!!" and something about having chicken for dinner. It was all very disconcerting" concluded the suddenly grave Festoon.